Stop ‘subsidizing’ big retail postal customers

February 27, 2013

Seeking ways to save money, the post office is soliciting ideas. Suspending Saturday mail delivery, it finds, is extremely unpopular. How about charging businesses, those who get the greatest use out of mail delivery, a fair amount for delivering their advertising?

My mailbox is stuffed every week with fliers from stores where I have never shopped and have no intention of ever doing so. Christmas shops? Bed Bath & Beyond? Weis Markets? (I’m going to drive from Milford to Stroudsburg to save $.04 per pound on bananas?)

I’d be willing to pay a dollar to mail a letter if I thought all service users were carrying their weight. Right now, my stamp costs are subsidizing highly profitable big box stores that can easily afford to pay a little more to keep the post office in the black, and I’m being asked to forgo a day of delivery every week to maintain the out-of-kilter status quo.

This is not rocket science, just basic economics. Or has big business gotten control of the U.S. Postal Service, too?